Sounding Off

Nights can never be real and enjoyable without the croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets.
― Michael Bassey Johnson

The crickets usher in a softness that smooths the harsh edges of a day now passing. And if their song does not somehow lull us to a softer sleep, then we have become deaf to things that matter in the process of listening to all that does not.
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, "We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.
― Ray Bradbury

When I was at a writing retreat last fall, I woke up one morning to the sound of a fog horn. Such a lonely sound, but it made me nostalgic. I tried to remember the last time I heard a fog horn, but I couldn’t. With all the advances in technology, ships no long need the fog horn to warn them that they’re getting too close to the shore.

Another lonely sound I miss are train whistles. We don’t live close to the tracks, but when I was little we could still hear the train whistles as they sped by to destinations unknown. Since that time there’s been a lot of development in our town, with houses filling in all the spare land right up to the tracks. Then the people who moved into these houses complained about the train whistles until the trains were silenced.

When I was a kid, we owned a big chunk of property behind our house, and where this property abutted onto our back yard was a low spot that filled with water every spring. And where there’s swampy water, there are bullfrogs, who are rather vocal when it comes to trying to attract a mate.

This time of early is a little early for the frogs and crickets, but the dawn chorus has been going on for a few weeks now, getting earlier every day. The dawn chorus starts when the first glow of sunrise appears on the horizon, and continues until the sun is fully up.

Of course the birds don’t magically stop chirping and singing once the sun is up, but the noise is greatly reduced in volume. Mind you, I’m just guessing it’s the sun being fully up that quiets them down. All I know is that it starts with the first hint of light, and then about an hour later it doesn’t seem as intense.

I didn’t grow up with air conditioning, so I’d fall asleep with my window open, being serenaded by the frogs and the crickets, the train whistles and the fog horn when the day started out foggy.

Now, we have central air, which means we sleep with the windows shut and there’s no lullaby save for the hum of the fan. If I sit outside at night I can hear the crickets, and if I’m really lucky a frog might have made its way to the pond in our back yard. And during a hot summer day I might hear the long, whining violin note of a cicada.

But things change, towns grow. These nostalgic sounds of summer have been replaced by revving motors, loud TVs and radios, and the sounds of construction. Just one more reason to miss the good ‘ole days.